FEATURED ARTICLES ABOUT ICE CREAM MAN - PAGE 5

Everything sits better on a Ritz, but nothing makes memories flow like an Oreo. Nostalgia settled over the grand ballroom of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel like cocoa dust as 550 well-wishers gathered last Friday to celebrate the 75th birthday of the Oreo Chocolate Sandwich Cookie. Nabisco Brands Inc., which tossed the 7-hour, black-tie bash, had pulled out all stops, bringing in executives, retailers and friends of the cookie from all over the country and Paul Anka and Jerry Lewis to entertain them.

Under damp, gray skies, dozens of pint-size public school pupils broke out their best one-legged yoga poses Sunday to celebrate their school's birthday. "Lift your heart," their instructor called on a green field at the University of Illinois at Chicago. "Keep breathing." When the children were done, snacks were available, but a slightly atypical variety: carrot sticks, low-fat string cheese, sunflower seeds and bottled water. Yes, they do things a little differently at the 11 Chicago International Charter Schools.

While millions celebrated pop music's most popular acts with the Grammy Awards on Wednesday night, hundreds gathered at Lincoln Park's Park West to celebrate one of pop music's weirdest unsung heroes--Jonathan Richman. With no opening band on the bill, Richman hit the stage at an unusually early 7:30 p.m. and embarked on his jaunty ode to guitars and youthful memories, "Fender Stratocaster." Realizing that he started the tune in the wrong tempo, Richman abruptly stopped in mid-song to kick up the beat and start again.

The newly expanded Chicago Blues Festival opened for business Thursday in Grant Park with a relentless barrage of explosive guitar from the city's favorite contemporary blues son, Buddy Guy. Under untypically balmy breezes (at least so far this year), Guy gave the throng gathered for the evening's main-stage festivities at Petrillo Music Shell precisely what they traveled downtown to experience -- a non-stop display of pyrotechnical fretwork and manic energy.

What an ingenious breath of fresh air is "Dogtown," and what a wild ride its gifted nine players conduct. An ensemble that's both improvisational acting company and ongoing chorus of barnyard sound effects, the Dogs, as they call themselves, are a group of male De Paul University graduates who've devised their own, inimitable performance style. Working with a talented playwright named Stephen Serpas, they delve in interlocking vignettes, weaving together tales of urban gruesomeness with cartoon-, jazz-like ensemble acting.

The clanging bells sounded his arrival as a lone ice cream man pedaling frozen treats of every flavor passed baseball diamonds filled with children and parents chatting on the sidelines in an Evanston park. Days after he was robbed for the second time in two weeks, Annulko Dominguez-Cabrera, 46, again cycled his ice cream cart through parks and neighborhoods Tuesday. Though more common in Chicago, crime against pushcart vendors in Evanston has been limited, police officials said.

Stop scratching your head about what to do with the kids during the holiday season. If you're looking for local fun, there's plenty to be had. Try these on for size. Four Seasons Hotel Chicago Lucky little guests get first-class treatment with the Kids for All Seasons package: cookies and milk, a teddy bear, crayons and coloring books, balloons, a confetti-strewn bathroom with toiletries such as finger-paint bath soap and a kid-sized robe. Wait till you see the look on their faces when the complimentary Ice Cream Man cometh--right to your door.

The Crystal Lake City Council on Tuesday will consider banning an ice cream vendor's trucks from city streets. In April, the council learned that Barrington-based Glacier Ice Cream has the only license to operate an ice cream truck in the city and the council turned down a license request from Chicago-based Pars Ice Cream. Although no accidents involving pedestrians and ice cream trucks have been reported in Crystal Lake, a fatal accident involving an ice cream truck in another Chicago suburb was the impetus behind a 1978 ban on ice cream vehicles larger than a motor scooter, said City Manager Joe Misurelli.

It was homecoming weekend for the Smashing Pumpkins, and while the show on the stage at the Rosemont Horizon was full of fierce beauty, the show in the seats was nearly as good. Once a band reaches the point in its career where it can fill a basketball arena three times over--as the Pumpkins did Friday through Sunday--it's no longer just about the music. The Chicago band isn't much for lasers, dry ice or theatrics--though the film festival that whirled on three screens behind the band had its moments of both psychedelic grandeur and comic relief.

By Reviewed by Charles R. Larson, A professor of literature at American University | May 9, 1993

A Lesson Before Dying By Ernest J. Gaines Knopf, 256 pages, $21 The incident that propels the narrative of Ernest J. Gaines' rich new novel is deceptively simple. Shortly after World War II, in a Cajun Louisiana town, a 21-year-old black man who is barely literate finds himself in the wrong place at the wrong time, an innocent bystander during the robbery of a liquor store. The white store owner is killed, as are the two black men who attempt to rob the store; Jefferson-who is just standing there-panics.